Communication and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran on Saturday announced that state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited would invite bids for adding 60 million GSM lines envisaging an investment of over $4.5 billion.
"We are witnessing a record growth in the addition of subscribers in last few months this needs to be continuously fueled. Public sector companies BSNL and MTNL are extremely aggressive. BSNL will float a tender for adding 60 million lines in the first week of March," Maran said on the sidelines of function to launch Ericsson's Global R&D centre.
Of the 60 million lines, 30 per cent order (18 million lines) would go to another public sector equipment supplier ITI, who has a technical tie-up with French equipment manufacturer Alcatel, under reserve quota.
Complementing the two PSUs for announcing One-India tariff plan, enabling subscribers to make domestic long distance call (STD) through out the country for just one rupee, the minister said "wait for March one, more than 90 per cent of the telecom operators or may be all will join the bandwagon and announce similar tariff plans.
"I won't be surprised if they are even more aggressive and BSNL may have to face a stiff competition from his counterparts," he said, adding that One-India was just a beginning there was lot more competition to come in the telecom sector in the coming few months.